Clan MacDougall.net

Clan MacDougall Alternative History

PART ONE

Clan MacDougall: MacDougall

The early ancestor of the race was the mighty Somerled, Thane of Argyll and Lord of the Isles, in the middle of the twelfth century. Somerled was practically an independent sovereign, or, if he owed allegiance at all, it was to the King of Norway and not to the King of Scots. During the reign of Malcolm IV. he made several descents upon the Western Lowlands, and about the year 1157 made peace with that king upon the terms of an independent prince. It was the time when the possession of this north country still hung in the balance between the Norse and the Scottish races. David I. of Scotland, known to us by his descendant’s epigram as the " sair sanct for the croun," had laid far-sighted plans which were in the end to decide the issue in favour of the Scots. He had planted the threatened parts of his kingdom full with feudal knights, and in particular had settled the Stewarts at Renfrew for the purpose of blocking the waterway of the Clyde against the threatened Norse invasion. The Stewarts had carried the war into the enemy’s country, conquering Cowal and Bute, and being made Lords of these regions in consequence by Malcolm IV. By way of thanksgiving, it would appear, they had in 1163 founded the priory, now the Abbey of Paisley, when in the following year, with a view to turning the tables, Somerled sailed up the Clyde with a great fleet to attack them in their own territory. The attack failed. Somerled and his son, Colin, were slain, and another chapter in the great strife was ended.

Somerled left two ultimately surviving sons. To the younger, Reginald, fell the Lordship of the Isles, held for centuries by his descendants, the MacDonalds; to the elder, Dugal, fell Somerled’s possessions on the mainland, and from him were descended the powerful Lords of Argyll and Lorne. Somerled’s wife was a daughter of Olaf, King of Man, and it is just possible that the present last remaining seat of the MacDougals, Dunolly, which is, of course, "the fort of Olaf," may take its name from this fact.

A century and a half after the days of Somerled the MacDougal Lords of Argyll and Lorne were probably the most powerful family in the West. Alastair or Alexander of Argyll had married the third daughter of John, the Red Comyn, and, after the tragic death of King Alexander III., was a stout supporter of the claims of his father-in-law to the throne of Scotland. The episode at the Church of the Minorites in Dumfries, when Robert the Bruce stabbed the Red Comyn, made the MacDougals most bitter enemies of that king. Again and again Alastair of Argyll and his son, John of Lorne, came within a stroke of achieving their purpose, and overthrowing and slaying the king. Shortly after Bruce’s first defeat at Methven, the little Royal army was wandering among the western mountains when, at Dalrigh near Tyndrum, it was suddenly attacked by John of Lorne with a powerful following, and forced to retreat. John Barbour, the poetic historian of the Bruce, tells how the king was guarding the rear of his retreating company when, as he passed through a narrow way between the river and the hill, three of the MacDougal clansmen made a special effort to capture him. One seized his bridle, but the king dealt him a stroke that severed his shoulder and arm. Another thrust his hand between the king’s foot and stirrup, hoping to drag him from the saddle; but the king, feeling the hand there, stood firmly up and struck his spur into the steed, so that it dashed forward and the man lost his footing. At that moment the third assailant leapt from the steep hillside upon the horse behind Bruce, and tried to garrotte the king. Bruce, however, bent suddenly forward, pitching this man over his head, and cleft his skull with his sword. Then he slew the man at his stirrup with a third stroke. Though he had slain his assailants, however, Bruce was not free, for one of them held the king’s plaid in his death grip, and it was only by undoing his brooch and letting the plaid go that Bruce got rid of his burden.

This brooch, known as the brooch of Lorne, remains in possession of the MacDougals to the present day, and is the last tangible evidence of the ancient greatness of their house.

More than once afterwards John of Lorne came within reach of slaying or capturing the king. On one of those memorable occasions he pursued him with a blood-hound. Bruce endeavoured to escape by dividing his forces again and again, but on each occasion the hound followed the party containing the king, and at last Bruce, left alone with his foster-brother, seemed on the point of being taken, when he remembered the device of wading a bowshot down a running stream, thus throwing the hound off the scent, and so escaped.

But the king’s turn came at last. After his return from Rachryn, his victory at Loudon Hill, and his taking of Perth, he made a special incursion into the West to avenge the hurt, hatred, and cruelty he had suffered from John of Lorne. The latter waited his coming in the steep, narrow defile between Loch Awe and Loch Etive known as the Pass of Awe. It was a difficult place, so narrow that two men could not ride abreast, with Ben Cruachan towering above and the river pools boiling below. Here Lorne made an ambush, but he was out-generalled by the king. The latter sent the Lord of Douglas with Sir Alexander Fraser, William Wiseman, and Sir Andrew Grey, higher along the hillside, and the battle had not long joined when a shower of arrows from this outflanking party above took MacDougal’s forces in the rear. They were compelled to retreat, and, crossing the Bridge of Awe, were slain in large numbers at a spot still marked by their funeral cairns. Bruce then captured Dunstaffnage, the ancient Royal Scottish stronghold, which had been MacDougal’s chief seat, and proceeded to lay the country waste; whereupon Alastair of Argyll surrendered and was received into favour. But John of Lorne remained a rebel, and after Bannockburn, when Bruce sailed into the Western Isles, "None refused him obedience except only John of Lorne." Very soon afterwards, however, he was captured and imprisoned, first at Dunbarton and afterwards in Loch Leven Castle. After the death of Bruce, strangely enough, he was restored to liberty and his estates, and married a granddaughter of the king. When war broke out again in the days of Bruce’s son, and Edward Baliol overran the country, the MacDougals took the Baliol side. This was again the losing side, and in consequence the MacDougals lost a large part of their estates, which from that time passed more and more into the hands of the Campbells.